On 12/6/96, William Stirrat wrote:

<I know when we have our members-behind-the-scenes day we
<have lots of very curious people of all ages here, and I
<think if we tried it with general visitors we'd find even
<more interested folks.

I agree with Bill on this one.  If done right,
behind-the-scenes tours (BTS) are immensely popular with the
public.  Our problem is that if you do this more than on
special occasions, you risk not getting the rest of your
work of preserving and exhibiting artifacts (art, whatever)
done.  Our Education Division seems to think that every
visitor who walks in the door wants a BTS tour, whether or
we're doing anything interesting.  Perhaps in a much larger
museum there's always something "interesting" happening, but
we have to have meetings, research time, and do all that
other stuff that's pretty mundane, too.  I think it's a
matter of timing and presentation - no one wants to see your
office - they don't even think you have one.  The public
presumes you spend all your time with the neat paintings,
playing with the fossils, or exploring the caverns of your
history collections storage.  Don't you?  :)

Chris Dill

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C. L. Dill, Museum Director
State Historical Society of North Dakota
612 East Boulevard
Bismarck  ND  58505-0830
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Visit our Web site at: http://www.state.nd.us/hist/
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